Truflation has forecast that annual U.S. headline inflation will remain at 3.4% in August as higher gasoline prices, tariffs and producer costs threaten to keep price pressure above the Federal Reserve’s target.

Truflation said in its August inflation report that the softer July CPI reading was driven mainly by falling energy prices rather than a clear easing of underlying costs. The company expects the reversal of that energy decline, along with tariffs and higher input prices, to shape Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release.

The Cleveland Federal Reserve and market consensus also forecast an annual headline CPI of 3.4% and a core CPI of 2.4%. However, both expect headline prices to rise 0.4% from July, compared with Truflation’s 0.3% estimate. All three forecasts place monthly core inflation at 0.2%.

July headline CPI rose 0.1% month over month after falling 0.4% in June, while the annual rate eased from 3.5% to 3.4%. Core CPI increased 0.2% during the month and slowed from 2.6% to 2.5% year over year.

Energy has kept headline CPI above core inflation

Gasoline provided the clearest source of new pressure in Truflation’s August data, rising 3.4% from July and 27.6% from a year earlier. The report attributed the increase to high crude prices, tight fuel inventories, and limited spare capacity at refineries.

Retail gasoline remained above $4 per gallon and moved past $4.10 in early September, according to the report. Truflation said crude prices and supply risks in the Middle East could prevent consumers from receiving material relief unless oil prices fall or U.S. inventories recover.

“The principal reason headline inflation is running above core is the renewed pressure from energy,” Oliver Rust, head of data at Truflation, told crypto.news.

Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices added another 0.5% in August and rose 2.8% over the year. Restaurant prices led the monthly increase, with food away from home climbing 0.7% as operators passed on costs tied to ingredients, wages, utilities and property.

Grocery prices increased more slowly, although Truflation said tight beef supplies and high wholesale food costs limited the decline. Higher gasoline prices could also raise transportation and distribution expenses, adding another source of food-price pressure.

Apparel and communications provided some relief. Clothing prices fell 1% during August as retailers used back-to-school and end-of-summer discounts, while communications prices dropped 0.9% amid competition among mobile carriers and lower effective data costs.

Services costs have remained high despite lower core CPI

Although core inflation is forecast at 2.4%, U.S. service companies continued to report high operating costs. The ISM Services Prices Index increased from 70.3 to 72.6 in August, reaching its highest level since August 2022.

Rust said businesses were paying more for labor, logistics, energy, and other operating needs, but the increases did not pass directly into consumer prices. Productivity has offset part of the wage pressure by allowing companies to produce more with each hour of work.

“While compensation may be growing around 3.5%–4.0%, productivity growth of approximately 2.0%–2.5% means that the increase in labor costs per unit of output can be closer to 1%–2%,” Rust said.

Technology and artificial intelligence have improved output per worker in some industries, he added, reducing the inflation effect of higher wages. Truflation therefore expects services inflation to remain persistent rather than accelerate sharply.

Housing produced a mixed reading. Truflation’s measure rose 0.15% in August but remained 2.32% lower than a year earlier. Rental inflation increased as the supply of newly built apartments started to slow, while high mortgage rates continued to limit home purchases and transactions.

Owned housing prices remained under pressure from weak affordability, elevated listings, and price cuts. Rental concessions stayed common, especially in Sun Belt markets, although the report said slower construction could allow asking rents to rise faster than effective rents.

Tariffs have raised the risk of higher goods inflation

Costs entering the production chain were running well above consumer goods inflation. Goods producer prices rose 6.5% year over year in July, while core goods PPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 4.9%.

Nonfuel import prices advanced 0.4% during July and 4.5% from a year earlier, their strongest annual increase since 2022. Imported capital goods rose 0.9% for the month, goods from China added 0.8%, and prices for imported vehicles and parts increased 0.2%.

Manufacturers also faced high raw-material costs. The ISM Manufacturing Prices Index stood at 71.1 in August, extending a run of rising prices to 23 consecutive months. Truflation linked the pressure to steel, aluminum, petroleum products, imported goods, and tariffs.

The average statutory tariff rate reached about 11% in August and is scheduled to rise to 11.8% by year-end, according to the report. Truflation said importers could delay the effect on consumers by accepting lower margins, selling inventory purchased before the tariff increases, changing suppliers, or negotiating lower prices.

As older inventories are replaced, Rust expects more of the higher landed costs to enter retail prices. Truflation’s analysis found that the effective tariff rate had its strongest correlation with core goods inflation when tariffs led prices by about four months.

U.S. tariff policy has already affected digital-asset markets. A Sep. 4 report on trade policy noted that an earlier tariff announcement covering 60 trading partners had sent Bitcoin below $65,000 as Treasury yields rose and leveraged long positions absorbed most crypto liquidations.

Truflation data have led BLS CPI by 41 days

To construct its U.S. inflation measure, Truflation collects more than 15 million price observations from over 40 data partners. The company maps the observations into BLS spending categories and then applies the weights used in the official CPI.

The resulting index serves as the input for Truflation’s BLS forecasting model. According to Rust, the company’s data have led movements in official CPI by approximately 41 days, or about six weeks.

Since 2011, Truflation’s measure and the BLS CPI have recorded a correlation of 0.955. Moving Truflation’s data forward by 41 days raises the correlation to 0.962, although Rust said the exact lead varies by inflation environment and spending category.

Since the company began publishing BLS CPI forecasts, its estimates have recorded an average absolute deviation of 0.09 percentage points from the eventual government releases, Rust said.

The August reading will also influence expectations for the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 15–16 meeting. A recent Bitcoin market report found that BTC had fallen below $78,000 as hotter producer inflation and rising expectations of a September rate increase reduced demand for risk assets.

August headline producer inflation reached 5.4%, slightly above the 5.3% forecast, while core PPI increased to 4.6%, its highest level since June. CME FedWatch data cited in the report placed the probability of a quarter-point September rate increase at about 60%.

Truflation expects headline inflation to remain around 3.3%–3.4% during the quarter, with monthly readings ranging from roughly 0.2% to 0.4%. By year-end, the company projects a possible decline into the 2.8%–3.2% range if energy prices ease, housing disinflation continues, and businesses pass higher goods costs to consumers gradually.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said before the payroll report that the next inflation release would carry considerable weight in his September decision. The BLS is scheduled to publish August CPI data on Sept. 11, five days before the Federal Open Market Committee announces its interest-rate decision.

Ripple Treasury has expanded its GSmart platform with policy-controlled AI tools for forecasting, liquidity, risk, reconciliation, and reporting, as 60% of eligible customers use its Risk Insights feature.

According to a Ripple Treasury announcement, the updated GSmart system uses specialized AI agents to examine treasury data while enforcing controls set by each company.

Rather than allowing AI models to calculate financial results and act on them without review, the platform separates the underlying calculations from the AI layer. Deterministic engines handle the financial calculations, while GSmart reads company policies, identifies patterns in treasury data, and explains its recommendations.

Finance teams retain control over each transaction because the system requires a person to approve any financial action. Ripple Treasury said the setup gives companies access to more automated analysis without handing final authority to an AI agent.

Ripple Treasury keeps humans in control of transactions

GSmart’s agents focus on defined treasury functions, including cash forecasting, liquidity management, financial risk, account reconciliation, and reporting. Each agent examines information related to its assigned function instead of operating as a general-purpose assistant across the company’s financial systems.

When an agent detects activity that may breach an internal rule, it can alert the treasury team and identify the policy behind the recommendation. Users can then review the relevant clause and the supporting data before deciding whether to proceed.

Ripple Treasury said the feature is designed to make AI recommendations easier to trace. Instead of giving users an unexplained warning or proposed action, GSmart can show which internal control produced the result.

Knowledge Studio acts as the governance layer for the agents. Treasury teams use it to define the policies, permissions, and internal controls that guide how GSmart examines financial information.

Within Analytics Studio, Ask GSmart provides a conversational tool for treasury data. Users can submit questions in everyday language and retrieve information without creating a separate report or manually reviewing several data sets.

The company said its system does not give AI final control over payments or other financial transactions. GSmart can find an issue, explain the supporting policy, and recommend an action, but an authorized employee must approve the transaction.

GSmart adoption reaches 60% for risk monitoring

The expanded features are already available across Ripple Treasury’s enterprise customer base rather than being tested through a limited pilot, according to the company.

Ripple reported that 60% of customers eligible for Risk Insights have activated the feature. Risk Insights searches for unusual exposures and possible policy breaches, giving treasury teams a way to examine issues before approving related activity.

Forecast Insights has reached 44% of eligible customers. The feature compares expected cash flow with actual results and identifies differences that may affect a company’s liquidity planning.

By examining those gaps, the platform can bring potential cash shortages or excess balances to the attention of treasury staff. The employees responsible for the company’s finances can then assess the information and decide whether to move funds, adjust forecasts, or leave existing plans unchanged.

Reconciliation tools form another part of the update. Ripple Treasury said GSmart can help users find differences between financial records while its reporting functions organize treasury information for review.

The company has presented the agents as tools for specific work processes, with policy controls applying across the recommendations they produce. Its approach places automated analysis before the approval stage rather than allowing software to authorize and complete transactions on its own.

AI governance concerns drive demand for policy controls

Ripple Treasury introduced the update as companies increase their use of autonomous software across finance and other business functions.

Citing Gartner research, the company said an average Fortune 500 business could operate more than 150,000 AI agents by 2028. Yet only 13% of organizations believe they currently have the governance needed to manage such agents properly, according to the same research cited in the announcement.

Ripple Treasury positioned GSmart’s policy references and approval requirements as controls for finance departments that must explain how decisions are reached. The model gives employees a record of the policy used by an agent before they accept or reject its recommendation.

“Every CFO is under pressure to embrace AI,” Ripple Treasury Senior Vice President Renaat Ver Eecke said.

Ver Eecke added that financial decisions also need to be explainable, governed, and compliant. GSmart’s design addresses those requirements by keeping the AI interpretation separate from the engines that calculate financial results.

Finance departments often work with payment instructions, liquidity forecasts, debt positions, foreign exchange exposure, bank balances, and other sensitive records. Under Ripple Treasury’s stated model, agents can examine such data and flag an issue, but the company’s authorized staff remain responsible for approving the related action.

Ripple builds GSmart on its GTreasury business

Ripple Treasury grew out of GTreasury, the treasury management software company that Ripple acquired in 2025. Following the purchase, Ripple renamed the business and placed its established corporate treasury operations under the Ripple Treasury brand.

The company said the platform handled more than $13 trillion in transaction value during 2025 across over 1,000 customers. The figure covers activity recorded through the former GTreasury business and does not represent XRP settlement volume.

Separating the figures is important because Ripple Treasury serves corporate finance functions that extend beyond blockchain payments. Its platform covers cash management, forecasting, reconciliation, risk oversight, reporting, and other treasury processes, while Ripple operates separate digital-asset and payment services.

The GSmart expansion adds governed AI functions to those existing treasury workflows. Ripple said the product is already active among enterprise customers, as shown by the adoption rates reported for Risk Insights and Forecast Insights.

In the United States, Ripple Treasury plans to demonstrate the expanded system at Sibos 2026, scheduled for Sep. 28 through Oct. 1 in Miami. The event is expected to bring together banks, payment companies, and corporate treasury teams for discussions covering AI, payments, and digital finance.

Aviation sanctions target Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey, and UAE-based firms 

Coinbase has restored the Coinbase Wallet name just over a year after replacing it with Base App, positioning the self-custodial product around multichain trading, perpetual futures, prediction markets and tokenized stocks.

Coinbase confirmed through its official Google Play listing that the Base App has returned to the Coinbase Wallet name as the product focuses on multichain trading, transfers, and earning features.

Ryan Kass, head of Coinbase Wallet product, said in a statement that the wallet would function as a “test kitchen” for products and assets that Coinbase may not list on its centralized exchange. Long-tail tokens will appear once they are minted on supported networks, while the company plans to connect additional chains after they launch.

Trading inside the wallet takes place onchain, according to Kass. Users can also follow selected traders and view their activity, a feature he said may help them find trading opportunities.

Coinbase will keep the product self-custodial, meaning customers retain control of their private keys and assets. According to Kass, the wallet automatically identifies and hides tokens classified as scams or malicious assets.

Coinbase Wallet puts trading ahead of social features

Coinbase renamed Coinbase Wallet as Base App in July 2025, combining trading and payments with messaging, social feeds and mini-apps. The company promoted the product as an “everything app” built around its Base layer-2 network.

After the social features failed to attract the expected use, Coinbase began rebuilding the app around financial products. CEO Brian Armstrong said in March that the company’s social experiment “didn’t quite work,” while Base creator Jesse Pollak later acknowledged that creator-focused products had fallen short.

In July, Pollak handed leadership of the app to Jordan “Cobie” Fish and returned his attention to the Base blockchain. As crypto.news reported, Pollak said demand for social products had “disintegrated completely,” leaving Base behind competitors in prediction markets and perpetual futures.

Kass said Coinbase can change direction quickly when a product strategy fails to deliver the intended result. He described Base App as an “opinionated experiment” and said the restored name better explains its place within Coinbase’s product lineup.

“The Coinbase Wallet name better captures the product’s role as Coinbase’s self-custodial front door to the ‘everything exchange,’” Kass said. “While Base app was an opinionated experiment, Coinbase Wallet gives users access to all of onchain finance.”

Although the app is taking back its old name, Coinbase is retaining trading and financial features developed during the Base App period. Messaging and other selected functions will also remain available.

Hyperliquid perpetuals lead the trading push

Perpetual futures powered by Hyperliquid are the first example of the wallet’s testing-ground model. Coinbase added the integration in August, giving eligible users access to more than 290 markets and leverage of up to 50 times on certain contracts.

The Hyperliquid perpetuals launch covered contracts tied to Bitcoin, Ethereum, stocks and commodities. Hyperliquid executes the trades while users open and manage positions through the Coinbase interface.

Perpetual contracts allow traders to take leveraged long or short positions without owning the referenced asset. Unlike traditional futures, they do not expire, while funding payments between traders help keep contract prices close to spot prices.

Coinbase said the integration is unavailable in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, among other restricted markets. Leverage also depends on the selected asset, so not every contract carries the advertised 50x maximum.

For American customers, Coinbase operates a separate regulated futures service through Coinbase Financial Markets, a futures commission merchant registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a member of the National Futures Association. The regulated service is separate from Hyperliquid trading inside Coinbase Wallet.

Under the new branding, Coinbase is promoting the wallet with the phrase “no KYC, no waiting, and no borders.” Its website states, however, that individual products remain subject to location-based limits, making access dependent on a user’s jurisdiction.

Coinbase earns revenue from trading and product fees inside the wallet. The company did not provide details about the fee structure or figures showing whether the trading focus has increased user numbers.

Tokenized stocks and prediction markets face product reviews

Coinbase Wallet also gives eligible customers access to prediction markets and tokenized stocks. According to Kass, Coinbase applies “vigorous product and compliance reviews” before adding a new market or asset class to the app.

Individual tokens follow a different process. Assets become available by default after they are minted on a supported chain, although the wallet’s detection system can hide tokens linked to scams or harmful activity.

Coinbase brought four tokenized U.S. stocks to Base in August, offering eligible non-U.S. investors onchain exposure to Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet. The 1:1-backed stock tokens were issued through a Coinbase-controlled company in the Abu Dhabi Global Market.

Each token represents a beneficial interest in an underlying share held through a segregated custody arrangement, according to the product prospectuses. The securities are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and cannot be offered or sold to U.S. persons.

Prediction markets carry separate access questions in the United States. Coinbase Financial Markets has argued that federally regulated event contracts fall under the CFTC’s authority, but several states have challenged sports-related contracts under their gambling laws.

In August, a federal judge denied Coinbase relief against enforcement by Michigan officials. The preliminary ruling left the underlying lawsuit unresolved while allowing the state to continue defending its sports betting authority.

Coinbase Wallet adds Robinhood Chain and Monad

Following the name change, Coinbase Wallet supports Base, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Monad, and Robinhood Chain. Robinhood Chain and Monad were not included on the Base App’s previous list of supported networks.

Multichain support reduces the app’s earlier focus on Coinbase’s own layer-2 network, although Kass said Base would remain central to the wallet. Assets issued on Base may appear as they gain market attention, alongside tokens from other supported networks.

“Base remains central to Coinbase Wallet, and you’ll see Base assets naturally appear in the app as they trend,” Kass said.

According to Kass, displaying Base assets beside products from other networks will give users additional ways to discover tokens available through the self-custodial app.

With the growing popularity of the tokenization of sovereign debt on public blockchain platforms, the discussion around the XRP debt case is getting more and more popular. The data available now, however, separates practical activity on blockchain platforms and speculations related to the possible usage of XRP by governments.

According to the measurements provided by RWA.xyz and conducted on August 20, 2026, the amount of tokenized non-U.S. sovereign debt on the Stellar platform is about $490 million. Stellar emphasizes that it has become a leader in this particular type of activity and outperformed even Ethereum in this area.

The point is that Stellar leads in terms of non-U.S. government debt, while Ethereum remains a leader in the market of tokenized Treasuries. In addition, Stellar reports the development of its entire RWA ecosystem.

According to Stellar, in June 2026, tokenized RWA reached $3 billion. They included sovereign bonds, Treasury products, investment funds, credit instruments, and gold.

XRP Is Being Accused in Relation to the U.S. National Debt

The debate about XRP revolves around another possible application of the asset. XRP advocates have argued that this token can eventually be applied within the U.S. financial infrastructure in areas such as payments, liquidity, or settlements.

Some online debates have gone even further and proposed that XRP could be involved in strategies linked to the U.S. national debt. However, there is no policy evidence showing that any such program exists.

The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, has talked about economic growth and the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund while speaking about the economy of the United States. This discussion did not reveal any XRP-based strategy to manage or repay the national debt.

This distinction is important because the presence of a big national debt does not prove that some specific cryptocurrency will be used to address this problem. Tokenization of the national debt involves presenting an already existing financial instrument on blockchain technology.

XRP and Tokenization Tell Two Separate Tales

The market is continuing to keep an eye on XRP regarding institutional adoption of blockchain technologies. The price of XRP is currently around $1.40, and the recent market data is showing support at around $1.32 and resistance at around $1.46.

But price levels alone cannot confirm adoption by the government or any particular use case associated with debt obligations. A better example would be something that shows actual use and adoption by institutions.

For example, Stellar is giving us a glimpse of how assets, like Mexican CETES or Brazilian government bonds, among others, are being utilized on blockchain networks to give access to selected sovereign assets.

But the case of institutional adoption for XRP would remain somewhat prospective. Possible applications of XRP would include cross-border payments, liquidity, settlement, and other infrastructure applications. Any confirmation from a government or another institution of a debt-based strategy for using XRP will confirm or refute such assumptions.

Therefore, the tokenization trend is demonstrating blockchain adoption by traditional finance, but this alone cannot prove XRP usage in relation to U.S. national debt.